


Dreams Before Dawn

by juniperwick



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Geralt doesn't do feelings, I just wanted some nighttime snuggles, M/M, Mild Blood, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Sleepy Cuddles, Swearing, blood is only mentioned tbh, human rules are for humans, romantic cuddling if you want it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22020031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperwick/pseuds/juniperwick
Summary: A year after the messy business with the djinn, Geralt and Jaskier are together again. Jaskier still dreams about it sometimes; Geralt is softer than he appears.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 63
Kudos: 1871





	Dreams Before Dawn

The small hours. The woods dark as dreamless sleep. Harmless creatures move between the trees, keeping their distance. Nearby, Roach sleeps, breathing evenly, head down. Far overhead, an owl waits. By the dying remains of a campfire, Geralt of Rivia kneels, still as the grave.

Then, suddenly, his peace is broken.

There’s a gasp. The bundle of blankets on the other side of the fire shudders. Another breath, dragged in like a drowning man briefly breaking the waves. A jarring movement. A kick.

Geralt sighs, and gets up.

On the other side of the fire, tangled in his blankets, Jaskier is dreaming. Geralt goes to a knee beside him. In the ashen shades of his enhanced nightvision, the bard is pale, face compressed by fear. He struggles for breath, sucking in each one as if his windpipe were full of glass. As Geralt watches, Jaskier’s hands find his throat, scrabble at his skin. He whimpers, little sounds in the vast nighttime.

Geralt knows this dream.

He reaches down, wraps his hands around Jaskier’s wrists to hold his hands still, and shakes him.

It’s been a year, more or less, since the djinn on the riverbank. A year since Yennefer. A year that’s passed in walking, and riding, and fighting, and sleeping, and shitting, and fucking, and sometimes, in brief, intense interludes, talking—mainly the bard, that is, when they run into one another on the road.

Over this year, Geralt has come to know this dream of Jaskier’s from his others. It’s another of his witcher gifts: he can usually sense the dreams beneath the skin of a man’s sleep the way he can hear a lying heartbeat or a hiding animal. Most of the bard’s dreams are either fucking or talking (because it seems nothing can stop this man’s mouth, not even unconsciousness). But this djinn dream, this dream of blood and pain and panic, is of a different colour.

Jaskier comes awake like someone shaking off their bonds, weakly at first, then all at once, half swallowing a yelp that sounds like Geralt’s name. Awake, the wordless moment of coming-to stretches out long between them. Jaskier silent is an event as rare as sapphires, Geralt has time to reflect, before the panic on the bard’s face reminds him that while Geralt can see perfectly, Jaskier’s nearly blind in the dark.

Voice low, Geralt says, "You were dreaming." Glancing down, he realises he’s still holding the bard’s wrists, and lets them fall.

Still gasping for breath, Jaskier props himself up on an elbow and brings a trembling hand to his throat. He swallows visibly, and clears his throat. He opens his mouth.

Geralt takes hold of the lower half of Jaskier’s face with his gloved hand, covering his mouth. "Please don’t start talking." Carefully, he pulls his hand away. "It’s close to dawn. Just go back to sleep."

Jaskier takes his hand from his throat and reaches out, hesitant in the dark. His hand finds the collar of Geralt’s leather tunic and curls his fingers around it. His fingers are hot against Geralt’s skin. He drags in a ragged breath, then another. Then, before Geralt can muzzle him, he says all in a rush, "Just one thing."

Geralt groans, but Jaskier goes on, voice steady despite the tremble in his hand, "Aren’t you going to sleep? You know in the morning we’re going to have to walk five miles and then destroy a nest of alghouls. You need your beauty sleep. Or would it be brawn sleep for you? Or– or muscle sleep? Hero sleep?"

"Jaskier," Geralt growls, a warning.

Jaskier’s hand tightens on his collar. " _Somebody_ ’s grumpy tonight." He attempts a smile. It falls off his face quickly in the unrelenting darkness. "Don’t go just yet. I, ah–" He swallows again. "I could do with some company."

Geralt clenches his jaw against the instinctual refusal. He’s seen a dozen people he had cared for die bloody—and despite received wisdom it didn’t get easier. If anything, it got worse, because each time he had thought that this time, _this_ time, he was strong enough, quick enough, prepared enough to stop it. He remembers Jaskier, bloodstained, silent for once, still, and somehow smaller, in Yennefer’s spelled sleep. The guilt like a knife in his guts.

Instead of refusing, Geralt sighs. "Fine."

A real smile blossoms on Jaskier’s face. "I knew you were really a big softie, Mr Scary Gruff Monster-Hunter."

"Don’t ruin it."

"I should write a song. The White Wolf’s got a heart, once you get past the teeth and claws."

"Jaskier." Geralt leans closer. "Shut up."

Jaskier opens his mouth but Geralt is quicker. Before he can make a sound, Geralt takes a fistful of his shirtfront and shoves him back, down onto the ground, knocking the breath out of him. "Lie down." Then Geralt sits and stretches out, long as a cat, beside him. He rests his head on his fist, looking down at the bard. "I’m here. You got what you wanted. Now sleep."

Jaskier breathes a laugh. "What I wanted." He turns his face up to the stars, visible through the bare branches. "Yes, definitely. Everything I ever wanted, right here. Scary noises in the woods, twigs sticking into me through my bedroll, a sleeping partner prone to random acts of violence against friend and foe alike, absolutely no gold or women or wine…"

Geralt shifts to pillow his head on his arm. It’s been a day and a half since he last slept. He could sleep, here, now—just a few hours. He reaches out a hand to rest on Jaskier’s arm—and finds a tremor running through him, invisible, beneath his hand. The dream, still. Blood and pain and panic. "Jaskier."

"What?"

Geralt lifts his arm again. "Come here."

Jaskier’s mouth opens and closes once, twice, before he says, "Plot twist, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth." He shifts, bringing the blankets with him, until he’s lying under Geralt’s arm, shoulder to chest. Geralt lets his arm fall, loose hand just resting on Jaskier’s ribs. He can feel the bard’s heartbeat—fast as a rabbit’s—under his fingertips.

Above them, the stars hang like a thousand glinting eyes. After a long moment of blessed quiet, Jaskier asks, "Geralt?"

Geralt makes a noncommittal sound in his throat.

"I’ve got to ask." Jaskier turns his head toward Geralt. Their faces are inches apart. "Do you normally spend nights in the woods snuggled up with your friends, or is it just me?"

"It’s not the first time."

"I know that. Just, mostly, before, I’ve been drunk. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining."

"Sounds like it."

"I’m not. I just–" He breaks off, starts again. "Most people don’t. You know."

Geralt opens his eyes again, lets the glint of the dying embers in the fire flare luminous in his pupils. Despite the years between them, Jaskier’s eyes still widen. Geralt says, "Human rules are for humans. Unless you care?"

"No," Jaskier breathes. "No. Nope. Not in the slightest." He shifts closer still. Geralt can feel the heat of him against his chest now, smell him—road-sweat and lute rosin and the pigeon they’d eaten for dinner. Jaskier’s hair tickles his nose.

"Good." Geralt tightens his grip briefly, fingers digging into Jaskier’s side before letting go. "So go to sleep."

Jaskier sighs, a long outrushing of tension, and settles his slight weight further back against Geralt’s chest. "Whatever you say, Geralt." After a long period of quiet—one of Geralt’s heartbeats—the tremor deep in Jaskier’s bones lessens. "You know," Jaskier says, words slurring with tiredness, "Usually I tend toward pretty, soft, pleasant-smelling people in nice dresses—or out of them–" He interrupts himself with a yawn, before going on, "but there’s something to be said for being encircled in a big, strong, muscular pair of arms. We should do this more often." Another long silence, during which Geralt can’t help but yawn in response. Jaskier begins to hum, disjointedly, in that off-key way Geralt’s reluctantly familiar with: the way he does when he’s falling asleep.

Jaskier doesn’t need him, Geralt insists to himself, as his own eyes close. And he certainly doesn’t need the bard. Tomorrow could be the day Jaskier gets disembowelled by an alghoul, and Geralt would never have to tune out his singing, or his humming, or his incessant talking ever again. And Geralt’s life would be quiet again, for good.

"Ow," Jaskier mumbles, shifting under his arm. "Geralt, would you mind…?"

"Sorry." Geralt loosens his grip where he’d tightened it without realising.

He doesn’t want to see the bard die. Whatever he can do to prevent it, he will. And, as he nudges his nose against Jaskier’s shoulder, inhaling his scent and his warmth, he has to allow that things are different when he’s around. Noisier, certainly. But brighter. Clearer.

It doesn’t mean anything, Geralt thinks as the comforting darkness of sleep rises like a tide to submerge him. Everyone dies, and dies badly, even bards who try to sing the world to rights. Everyone except Geralt. But for now, even though it doesn’t mean anything, he can curl himself around Jaskier, let the bard’s warmth seep into his bones, and ease his bad dreams for him.

As the witcher and his bard slide down into shared sleep, the watching stars wink over them. Close over the horizon, the day is coming on fast.


End file.
